The present disclosure relates generally to equipment utilized and operations performed in conjunction with a subterranean well and, in an embodiment described herein, more particularly provides a smooth bore latch for a tie back receptacle extension.
A tie back receptacle and associated tie back liner may be used to isolate casing above a liner hanger from pressure within the casing. However, the tie back liner will elongate and shrink due to thermal and pressure effects, and so a relatively long tie back liner will require that its seal assembly be received in a correspondingly long tie back receptacle.
Unfortunately, where a liner hanger is of the expandable type, only a relatively short tie back receptacle is typically provided. Thus, it is desirable to be able to install a tie back receptacle extension in the liner hanger, in order to provide for large seal assembly displacement therein, when a relatively long tie back liner is to be used.
However, due to the relatively thin wall thickness of an expandable liner hanger, it is undesirable to cut grooves, threads, etc. into the tie back receptacle for a conventional latch to secure the tie back receptacle extension. It is also undesirable to increase the wall thickness of the liner hanger, since this would make it more difficult to expand the liner hanger and/or would reduce the through bore of the liner hanger.
Therefore, it will be appreciated that improvements are needed in the art of installing tie back receptacle extensions. These improvements will be useful in other fields of the subterranean well art, as well.